Spellbound by the beauty of Indigo Batik from Pak Tjok of Pura Pejeng, I went home (yet again) with one (yes, one) indigo batik scarf.
Aside from the fact that the motif is hand painted on the fabric (sometimes stamped, Pak Tjok is the one that created the design and the stamp), the indigo dye is harvested from their indigo plantation. Indigo is an organic compound with a distinctive blue color, it is a natural dye extracted from indigo plants (they grow local plant and Thai plant).
A variety of plants have provided indigo throughout history, but most natural indigo was obtained from those in the genus Indigofera, which are native to the tropics like Thailand and Bali. Both Indigo leave from Thailand and from Bali are from the same Indigo family plants but different in the shape of the leaves. The primary commercial indigo species in Asia was true indigo (Indigofera tinctoria, also known as Indigo sumatrana). A common alternative used in the relatively colder subtropical locations such as Japan's Ryukyu Islands and Taiwan is Strobilanthes cusia. In Central and South America, the two species grown are Indigo suffruticosa and dyer's knotweed (Polygonum tinctorum), BUT the Indigofera species yield more dye.
The precursor to indigo is indican, a colorless, water-soluble derivative of the amino acid tryptophan. Indican readily hydrolyzes to release β-D-glucose and indoxyl. Oxidation by exposure to air converts indoxyl to indigo. Indican was obtained from the processing of the plant's leaves, which contain as much as 0.2–0.8% of this compound. The leaves were soaked in water and fermented to convert the glycoside indican present in the plant to the blue dye indigotin. The precipitate from the fermented leaf solution was mixed with a strong base such as lye, pressed into cakes, dried, and powdered. The powder was then mixed with various other substances to produce different shades of blue and purple.
Indigo is among the oldest dyes to be used for textile dyeing and printing. And you know what? It repels mosquito too!
The precursor to indigo is indican, a colorless, water-soluble derivative of the amino acid tryptophan. Indican readily hydrolyzes to release β-D-glucose and indoxyl. Oxidation by exposure to air converts indoxyl to indigo. Indican was obtained from the processing of the plant's leaves, which contain as much as 0.2–0.8% of this compound. The leaves were soaked in water and fermented to convert the glycoside indican present in the plant to the blue dye indigotin. The precipitate from the fermented leaf solution was mixed with a strong base such as lye, pressed into cakes, dried, and powdered. The powder was then mixed with various other substances to produce different shades of blue and purple.
Indigo is among the oldest dyes to be used for textile dyeing and printing. And you know what? It repels mosquito too!
thank you all for stopping by and viewing the post...
xxx
